★Thanatosis Produktion
Two Skies
"Two Skies" is the first recording of an ongoing collaboration betweenviolinist Maya Bennardo, bass clarinetist Erik Blennow Calälv, and kacapi musician Kristofer Svensson, who have been playing together in Stockholm since 2020. Bringing together different performance and composition practices—contemporary classical, free improvisation, and Sundanese music—the music on this album represents a hybrid form of chamber music. In its origination, it is a form of music between improvisation and compos…
Residy
'The music on this album is a variation on a variation, the Goldberg Variation no. 21 by JS Bach. In a moment of realistic modesty, it struck me that I will probably never live up to my old dream of being able to play all the Goldberg variations in a way that’s at least close to the composer’s intentions and that pleases my own ears. However, I reckoned, perhaps I could use the score of one of the pieces as a foundation to build something else. Exploring and at the same time (re)creating the res…
Night Will Fade and Fall Apart
"As I perceive it, in much of Magnus Granberg’ work, going back as far as projects such as Sheriff, there’s an in-drawing nurturing of self. However one may read the beautifully poetic, frequently melancholic nature of the titles of the pieces, this is far from a flattening of the nature of existence but rather a celebration of the interior life of the individual, both of the composer and his growing, attentive, audience, accumulated over time due to a remarkably consistent series of releases. T…
Arch of Motion
*Edition of 300* In recent years Swedish musician Linnéa Talp has grown interested in liminal spaces of sound, increasingly searching for her breath deep within passages of a song when instruments gently and patiently bridge the verses. In 2020 she released Cochlea, a brooding pop-rock record made under the name Deerest. “I’ve been trying to work with my body, my breath and my listening,” she says of her work since finishing that release. “I wanted to integrate a sense of slow and simple movemen…
Kristine Scholz Plays Otte And Cage
*In process of stocking* Featuring the Sweden-based pianist, new music pioneer, and former Merce Cunningham-collaborator Kristine Scholz, the album "Scholz plays Otte and Cage" is focusing the music of two composers who over time came to mean a great deal to one another: Hans Otte (1926-2007) and John Cage (1912-1992). On the album, four movements from Otte's seminal work "Das Buch der Klänge" (1979-82) is combined with a stunning interpretation of Cage's "Music for Piano 4-19" (1953). As the ex…
Utopia
For more than two decades Swedish reedist Martin Küchen has cemented his place as one of the most versatile musicians within improvised and experimental music, following his innate curiosity to pursue many different approaches. Depending upon one’s aesthetic preferences one might know him as a free jazz firebreather in Threnody (with Johan Berthling and Steve Noble), a post-bop composer and bandleader of grainy soulfulness (particularly as the ringleader of the sprawling Scandinavian nonet Angle…
Björnhorn
*100 copies limited release* Recorded and mixed by Daniel Bengtson at Studio Rymden, Stockholm, Feb 2021Produced by Alex Zethson & Johan BerthlingMastered by Daniel Ögren
All music by Johan Berthling except For Turiya by Charlie HadenDedicated to Maria, Arvid & Vidar
Produced with support from the Swedish Arts Council
Some Of Them Were Never Unprepared
*In process of stocking* 'As a musician, I've been curious for many years of how collective musical practices can provide a sense of weightlessness, as well as how a focused interplay can blur the lines between musicians and sound sources and create reconfigurations of the relations between the two. I have also tried to explore these observations in depth in some of my composed music: during 2015-2017 I experimented with ways to surprise and destabilise myself in the solo format within the compo…
Tkać
LED and Love Sounds (2015) is Forsberg’s first sound-and-light piece. The piece is made of frozen and processed violin sounds. The drones are slowly changing, providing minimal repetitions that never stay the same. ”A slow transition from playing on my instrument, to play only my electronics. Letting the violin hang there with me on stage, listening to itself. Following how the drones slowly change, minimal repetitions that never stay the same. And you can hear the gallery clearly, it moves some…
Det Försvunnas Namn
*In process of stocking* All compositions by Martin Küchen (STIM/ncb), except "Sheer Life Asleep" and "Hippopotami mit Mensch" by Martin Küchen with recordings made by Chris Watson – "19. Elephants" and "05. Hippopotami" – taken from the album "Outside the Circle of Fire” (TOUCH TO 37). Chris Watson is published by Touch Music/Fairwood Music UK Ltd. "The 5th of December 1931 02.00 AM" is based on the first part of the sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite II, BWV 1008.
Ismalfa
Soon celebrating 20 years as a duo, on Ismalfa J/L Duo team up with Brooklyn-based composer/musician Adrian Knight and vocalist/lyricist Frew Elfineh Taha (also known under the moniker Black Fist). A cohesive suite in eight parts, Ismalfa is a powerful statement of dynamic and forward-looking acoustic jazz.
Fly By Night
Artist's notes: "Originally disseminated as a digital-only release on my now dormant label Pink Pamphlet in 2014, ‘Fly By Night’ now gets a proper release via the Stockholm label Thanatosis Produktion. Since my early 20s the electric guitar has been a constant companion and assistant in my compositional work. Although I'm a much better pianist than guitarist, I've often found my relatively poor “fretboard awareness” to be a valuable asset in terms of focussing my intuitive hearing away from my m…
Ambrosia
Don Cherry collaborator and Bolon Bata founder Christer Bothén (b. 1941) delivers three CDs devoted to his highly personal expression on the bass clarinet and contrabass clarinet. To quote the artist himself: ”Those empty pipes have possibilities enough to cover several lives”. Sounds and silences are delicately carved out in different acoustic spaces, from a rainy soundscape in Spain to a peculiarly resonating church in Sweden. The album also includes a composition inspired by Tarkovskij’s mast…
Pole Of Inaccessibility
From the lower registers of the piano, a rumbling cloud of sound appears, in which sparkling overtones creates melodies and rhythms that points out the directions of the composition. In this sound world Earth meets Morton Feldman; meets Noto/Sakamoto; meets Philip Corner's piece "Gong" in its transcribed version for low strings. The Korg MS20 interferes now and then, making it impossible to clearly define the boundaries of the piano. The album download comes with a 99 page thesis in Swedish with…
Vending Machine
Joakim Forsgren and Andreas Hiroui Larsson come from diametrically different perspectives on music. Hiroui Larsson has a background in acoustic jazz and non-idiomatic improvisation, while Forsgren has played electric bass in punk and rock groups since his early teenage years. The two being friends since several years, making music gradually became a way of spending more time together. Their way of collaborating began after several years of talking about doing so and sharing and discussing music …